


we lifted this house

by bropunzeling



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1440967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bropunzeling/pseuds/bropunzeling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whatever. Tell me when your episode of <i>House Hunters</i> comes out," Jordie chirps.</p><p>[or; Tyler Seguin decides to buy a house.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	we lifted this house

**Author's Note:**

> for merrin, who a) asked for something decidedly dirtier and got glorified curtain!fic instead and b) beta'd it today like a fucking champion. she also talked me out of titling this "property virgins". hgtv is a marvelous place.
> 
> title from _anna sun_ by walk the moon.

It’s a bleary morning in January when Tyler wakes up, extracts himself from under the arm Jamie has slung over his waist and trips over Jamie’s shoes as he stumbles into the kitchen. Grumbling at the coffeemaker, he pokes at the buttons and barely even startles when a hand slides around to grab his hip.

“Morning,” Jamie mumbles, ducking his head enough to brush a kiss under Tyler’s ear. Tyler feels his thumb rubbing at the skin of his hip, skating over bruises.

“Morning,” he says back, leaning back a little but still staring down the coffeemaker. “I hate this fucking thing.”

“Buy your own then,” Jamie says back, reaching around Tyler’s shoulder to open up the kitchen cupboard and pull out a pair of mugs.

“For my sad, sad apartment? No point,” Tyler groans, unable to resist a tiny fist pump when the coffee pot finally starts looking full.

Jamie shrugs, the movement brushing his shoulder against Tyler’s back. “Gotta think about making a home sometime, bro,” he says easily, snagging the coffee pot and pouring some into his mug.

Tyler blinks at him, too busy replaying Jamie’s words to react in time. “Don’t be a fucking asshole, I need that,” he says after a couple seconds, elbowing Jamie in the stomach.

Jamie, to his credit, just grins and takes it, sticking his tongue out at Tyler before filling the other mug and sweeping them both away. “How much sugar do you want?”

“Two scoops.” Tyler heads for the fridge and grabbing the egg carton.

Jordie stumbles in as Tyler starts cracking eggs, bee-lining straight for the coffeemaker and making a distressed noise when he doesn’t find the pot there. “Coffee?” he asks, looking from Tyler to Jamie.

“Pour it yourself,” Jamie calls, walking over to the stove and handing Tyler his mug. Tyler takes a sip – it has just the right amount of cream and sugar, and he can’t help smiling at Jamie. Jamie smiles back, dimple punched in his cheek, and reaches out to quickly brush his fingers on Tyler’s forearm before retreating again.

It hits Tyler, right then and there, that he’d be alright with this – him and Jamie standing around in a kitchen, barefoot and in ratty t-shirts while cooking eggs before practice like it’s normal, routine. He’d be okay with having Jamie around, just standing there, smiling at him and sipping his coffee. He’d be more than okay, really.

“Didn’t you two get this out in the bedroom? Also, why were you down here? It’s literally one elevator ride away,” Jordie bitches, whacking Jamie on the shoulder as he goes to get plates.

“Stop bitching, you hoser,” Jamie retorts, but Tyler watches the flush travel up his neck, just under where his hair curls. It’s distracting enough that Tyler almost burns the eggs.

-

Tyler thinks about Jamie’s comment all through practice. He’s lucky that he and Jamie are so good on the ice together, because it’s not that Tyler isn’t paying attention – he knows they have to keep pushing up until the Olympic break, and he isn’t going to slack, but. Whenever he slides his eyes over to Jamie’s, he thinks about the way home sounded in his mouth.

It doesn’t stop after practice either – not when he’s stripping down and showering off, not when Jamie and Jordie are singing along to some shitty country song as they drive back to the apartment building, not when he gets off the elevator one stop later and sticks his keys in the lock. When he bends down to scratch Marshall around the ears, he looks around his apartment, and he doesn’t think this is what Jamie meant.

It’s not that the apartment is unusual, exactly. In Boston, the townhouse he and Freddy had shared was pretty much your average bachelor’s pad – kind of messy, a few too many empties stacked in his recycling bin under the kitchen sink. Even in the penthouse there had been a bed and a couch and an X-Box, and Tyler had considered himself set, and he’d never gotten a chance to move into the house in the burbs. When he moved down to Dallas, not much changed, apart from the average temperature. There’s a lot less takeout boxes thanks to the Benn’s living one floor down, but other than that, Tyler hasn’t seen much of a need to get anything different.

After all, he’s a young guy, no wife, no kids. It’s just him and a slightly less than well-behaved dog, and really, Marshall barely counts.

Still, when he takes stock, there just isn’t much there – not a lot of pictures up, barely any furniture, nothing really notable except the deer head on the wall that completely terrifies Marshall. He’d forgotten to put sheets on his bed for about two weeks until his mom had called and yelled at him about it, instead sleeping on top of his comforter because of the heat. If some complete stranger were going to walk into his apartment, they wouldn’t know anything about him.

“Huh,” he says, even as Marshall licks his palm, nosing his knees before leading him straight for the cupboard that has his food in it. “Huh,” he repeats, and then, once Marshall’s been fed and watered and isn’t making the saddest eyes in existence at him, he pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through his contacts for the team realtor Jamie told him about last fall.

-

Due to circumstances of the last push before the break and Tyler trying to get in as much time with Jamie as possible before he heads off into the wilderness – okay, Sochi, but same difference really – Tyler isn’t able to meet with the realtor until a couple days after he gets back from Cabo.

Well, and after he manages to thoroughly congratulate Jamie on the gold medal, but that goes without saying.

Rachel, as it turns out, is totally badass. When Tyler shows up in her office and admits he pretty much has no idea what he’s doing, really, she looks at him over the tops of her glasses and raises an eyebrow.

“Right,” she says, drawling on the _i_. “Well, then, Mr. Seguin, I guess we have our work cut out for us.”

They decide to schedule all the visits until after the mini-road trip, which means that Tyler spends the plane ride from Dallas and the downtime in Columbus sorting through the emails that Rachel sends him, full of pictures and specs and questions like, _What are your opinions on high ceilings?_

“Do I have opinions on high ceilings?” he asks Jamie. It’s been a couple hours, which is enough time for Jamie to decompress and work through his guilty captain feelings about losing to the Blue Jackets, though Tyler has a pretty good feeling about Vancouver when they get back.

“I don’t know,” Jamie huffs, rolling over on the bed and looking at Tyler. “Do you?”

“I don’t think so,” Tyler says, reading through Rachel’s latest email again. “But, I don’t know, what if I do and I just don’t know it? I could totally make the wrong call and then regret it forever.”

“About high ceilings?” Jamie asks, slinging an arm around Tyler’s waist and tugging him down so his head can rest on Jamie’s shoulder in a clear attempt to spy on Tyler’s emails. “Why are you even thinking about those?”

Tyler sighs, clicking out of his email and shutting the laptop before shoving it on the bedside table. “I’m thinking about getting a house,” he mumbles, turning his head so he can put his nose in the curve of Jamie’s neck. Jamie smells good, a combination of soap and shampoo and something Tyler can’t put his finger on.

Jamie reaches up a hand and starts playing with Tyler’s hair, scratching at his scalp with blunt nails. “A house?” he asks, and Tyler can feel the vibration in his chest. “What got you started on that?”

Tyler hums, not sure if he wants to admit it. The feeling of Jamie carding through his hair makes him feel tired, the game finally hitting him and settling into his muscles, like he’s five seconds from passing out entirely. Finally he says, half into Jamie’s neck, “You said something the other day, about making a home, and, I don’t know. I guess I just kept thinking about it, you know?”

“Oh,” Jamie says, still finger-combing Tyler’s hair. “Well, if you want any help – I mean, you know I will, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Tyler mumbles, reaching out a hand and tightening it in the hem of Jamie’s t-shirt. “I’m holding you to that, yeah?”

“Okay,” Jamie says, or at least, Tyler thinks he says it. He’s too warm and content to be paying attention, and when Jamie brushes a kiss along his hairline, he barely notices, already on the way to falling asleep.

-

By some miracle, Tyler doesn’t forget their conversation despite being on the verge of passing out through most of it, and when he’s scheduled to look at the first house right after practice on Friday, he drags Jamie along with him. They drop Jordie off right after practice, and he laughs for about a minute and a half after hearing where they’re going.

“Seriously? House hunting?” he says, grinning at both of them. “Don’t they have people who can like, do that for you?”

“If I’m getting a new place, I should look myself” Tyler protests, but Jordie just ruffles his hair.

“Whatever. Tell me when your episode of _House Hunters_ comes out,” he chirps, and then gets out of the car before Tyler or Jamie can say anything back.

“Right,” Jamie says, and when Tyler looks over, Jamie’s cheeks are flushed, meaning he looks about how Tyler feels. “To the houses then?”

Rachel, to her credit, takes the presence of two hockey players who know next to nothing about real estate in stride, just giving Jamie a nod before walking up the pathway to their first house, expecting them to follow in her wake.

“So here,” she says rapidly, showing them an entryway so big that it sort of freaks Tyler out, “we have a pretty standard two-story house – two car garage, big yard, fairly spacious.”

“Right,” Tyler gets out, looking up. The atrium is at least two stories, and really, when he decided to go home shopping, he wasn’t quite expecting – this.

“How many bedrooms?” Jamie asks, because he’s captainly like that, and Rachel nods at him in clear approval.

“Five, and there’s two and a half baths,” she says briskly. “Now, it’s an open floor plan, which means there’s not too many walls separating your kitchen from your living room from your den. How do you feel about that?”

“That sounds, uh, good,” Tyler replies, which is apparently the right answer.

“Excellent. I’ll keep that in mind,” Rachel replies, leading them onward and into a huge kitchen.

The rest of the tour goes pretty much the exact same way, Tyler feeling slightly overwhelmed and Jamie asking questions that he probably Google-searched, all of which make Rachel nod approvingly at him. Still, Tyler manages to see enough to know that while the house definitely isn’t his first choice, he’s a little more ready for figuring out what he actually wants.

When they finally emerge into the sun again, Rachel holds Tyler back on the front step as Jamie heads over to unlock the car. “So,” she says, nodding towards where Jamie’s by the car, “Next time we can look at some properties in gated communities. This one has good fences, but perhaps not as private as might be necessary.”

Tyler blinks at her. “Um, I mean,” he stutters out, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sure. Um. That would be great.”

“Alright,” Rachel replies, nodding at him. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Tyler heads over to the car in a daze, sliding into the passenger seat while Jamie looks at him sidelong from where he’s adjusting the rearview mirror. “You okay?” he asks, reaching out to brush a thumb along Tyler’s jawline that Tyler wants to lean into.

“Yeah,” Tyler replies, “yeah, I'm good.”

Jamie smiles at him, and then leans over to quickly kiss him before settling back in the driver’s seat. “Good,” he repeats, and when he turns on the radio, Tyler can’t help smiling.

-

The rest of the month turns into a blur of practice and games and playoff hopes, and yet somehow there still manages to be time to look for houses. Tyler’s not even sure how Rachel manages it – it’s like she finds the small chunks of time left over in Tyler’s day, and plans a thousand house tours in them.

Still, Tyler can’t say it’s been all bad. He finally knows what crown molding is, as well as what his opinions on high ceilings are (depends on the height), how he feels about open floor plans (awesome), and what kind of shower he wants (big enough to fit both him and Jamie, though he at least manages not to say that part out loud, or at least out loud in front of Rachel, anyways). Plus, Jamie’s totally stepped up to the plate, asking questions Tyler forgets about and occasionally even taking notes, though he gave up on that after house number seven.

It doesn’t mean that Tyler necessarily enjoys spending their entire road trip up north surrounded by printouts of floor plans and staring down emails with judgmental subject lines, but at least he gets to take over Jamie’s side of the bed, which has the double bonus of more room and forcing Jamie to cuddle with him, so. It’s a win-win.

He still has to slug Jamie in the shoulder when he turns on _Holmes on Homes_ instead of TSN, but it all kind of devolves into making out on top of the printouts, and it’s only the fact that playing the Penguins is incredibly exhausting that stops them from doing much more.

Eventually, Tyler lifts himself up just enough to resettle with his nose on Jamie’s collarbone, fingers tapping out some nonsense rhythm on Jamie’s chest. “Meeting with Rachel on Friday,” he mumbles, and Jamie makes a noise.

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” he says, and Tyler nods, too tired to say anything back. 

“Should’ve figured,” Jamie says later, when Tyler’s twenty seconds from dropping off. “You were serious about the team, serious about us."

Tyler hums, something warm spreading in his chest at Jamie’s words as he drifts off, Jamie’s hands a steady weight on his back.

-

In the end, finding the right house is incredibly anti-climactic.

It’s a two-story, with big windows and lots of light. There’s a huge yard for Marshall, a nice kitchen Tyler’s going to fail at using and a back porch step Tyler already knows someone’s going to trip over.

When Jamie comes up behind him on the back porch, hooking his chin over Tyler’s shoulder and grabbing at one of his hands, Rachel’s nowhere in sight, and Tyler can lean back into it without really worrying about it.

“It’s a nice house,” Jamie says, the bill of his baseball cap bumping into Tyler’s head.

Tyler nods, turning his head just enough so he can see a bit of Jamie’s face. “What do you think about team barbecues?” he asks, using his free hand to gesture around the yard. “Figure everyone can come over, have a few beers.”

“Sounds good,” Jamie hums, and the sound of it sends something sparking up and down Tyler’s spine. If it weren’t for the fact that Rachel’s around here somewhere, and that this technically isn’t Tyler’s house yet, he’d want to act on that, but instead he settles for turning in Jamie’s grip and pressing a sloppy kiss to Jamie’s collarbone, right above the torn-out shirt collar.

“I like it,” he says, and Jamie smiles at him.

“Easy as that?” he asks.

Tyler nods. “Easy as that.”

-

“I don’t see why I have to help you with painting,” Jamie says. He has a stripe of pale blue wall paint on the bridge of his nose, and it’s only because Tyler’s the best boyfriend ever that he isn’t totally laughing in Jamie’s face.

“Because,” Tyler says, following the wisdom of the HGTV people and getting back to work on covering up the primer he put up yesterday, “you’re my awesome, super supportive boyfriend and want to spend time with me always? Also,” he continues, grinning at Jamie, “someone has to be responsible over here, and it’s more likely that it’s you, let’s be real.”

Jamie groans, but he gets back to work. After a couple minutes of silence, he says, “Jordie’s wondering if this means he gets the apartment to himself. Says we’re too loud.”

Tyler wrinkles his nose, affronted. “We’re super considerate, what the fuck.”

Jamie laughs. “I think it’s the principle of the thing. He just wants to big brother us both.”

“He can’t big brother me, I _am_ the big brother,” Tyler replies, finally finishing his wall. He steps back to take a look and sighs. “Maybe I should’ve hired a contractor. This looks shitty and I have paint all over me.” He looks over at Jamie, who looks five seconds away from laughing, and points a finger. “And don’t say I told you so.”

“I wasn’t,” Jamie protests, but he gives up on keeping a straight face, laughing at Tyler cheerfully until Tyler can’t help joining in. 

“Though,” he says, once he’s done giggling at Tyler, “I was thinking, there’s a way for us to get all this paint off.”

Tyler looks at him to find Jamie staring pretty intently, and thinks that he likes where this is going. “We do have a pretty sweet shower now,” he says slowly, and Jamie’s gaze gets a little more heated.

So, okay, he doesn’t manage to paint the house, but he and Jamie do get to christen the master bath so all in all, Tyler’s calling it a win.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] we lifted this house](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2908160) by [duckgirlie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckgirlie/pseuds/duckgirlie)




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